Pick Your Poison Read online

  Brown eyes dancing as her lips pulled back into a mean smile, her white teeth flashed, exposing two slightly crooked and sharp canines.

  “Oh, yes, a mind-reader jumping into the unsuspecting normal’s mind to try and get in her pants. How original. How positively unique. Why, haven’t I heard that somewhere before...? Mary?” Stefan sat up a little straighter, gasping dramatically as his fingers brushed across his chest suggestively, earning himself a few hard stares. The necromancer didn’t seem to care. “Hmmm, Duncan? However did Mommy and Daddy meet, I wonder?”

  Callie kicked Stefan’s foot, shaking her head as her eyes flashed with a shot of electric blue and her full lips tightened. With another well-aimed, pointy-toed kick when it looked like she was about to be ignored, she gave him a warning look.

  Stefan subdued, but the noises he made in his throat, combined with the dour, sour look on his face, let it be known he’d only done so out of respect for our hostess, and most reluctantly at that.

  “Don’t talk about my parents.” Duncan lost his cool then, hopping up jerkily, his shoulders tensing as his spine stiffened.

  He was a big man, by height and sheer width alone—a gentle giant who’d just been pushed past his limit.

  I had to question the necromancer’s sanity as he picked at the much larger male.

  All grumbling and gruff with his big, burly body locked up tight, his short beard and that hard look on his face, Dunc’s big blue eyes flashing as they darkened beneath full brows, scowling heavily, the image of an angry bear came to mind.

  Someone had just poked the bear.

  A glaring match ensued, the two men glowering at one another, Duncan looming over Stefan, body tense, both of them refusing to back down, and that’s when things started to get really weird.

  The china set in the cabinet along the wall started clinking as Duncan’s blue eyes darkened, his thick, meaty hands fisting, clenching and unclenching at his sides.

  Stefan’s chin lifted stubbornly, black eyes flashing, a mulish tilt to his lips. For a second I thought I might have caught a flash of trepidation in his gaze, but it was gone in a second—a trick of the light, more than likely.

  “What was...? Earthquake?” Earthquake! It’s the big one! We’re all gonna die! I’m going to bite the big one with these jerk offs! I thought, in a panic.

  Jumpy, I yelped as the house started to shake, the glass in the coffee table rattling along with the windows as I gripped the arm of my seat. “Oh, my god, what the fu-”

  “Tellie-path, do not rise to the player of dead thing’s bait. It is exactly what the leech wants.” Spira’s voice came out low but sharp, her accent thickening as she too looked worried. Following her words, she let out a long, angry hiss.

  “Stefan! Duncan!” Callie snapped sharply, and just as fast as it all happened, it stopped.

  Hazel eyes wide, my black painted fingernails dug into the arm of the sofa. I’d only just arrived fifteen minutes prior, but after this shit I was done.

  “You know... I think I just shat myself. So, yeah...” Hands shaking as I pried them off the couch, much like pulling a cat’s claws out, I slowly let go. “I’m gonna just... go.” Hooking a thumb over my shoulder at the door, I barked out an ineffective laugh. A donkey’s braying cough is what it sounded like, but I shrugged it off, shrugged it all off. Yep, just gonna collect my shnit and go, I thought, reaching around blindly for my purse. Screw it. I’ll be outta here in a sec anyway.

  Hooking two fingers onto my fat, black bag’s long shoulder strap, I scooped it up and slid from the couch, sliding slickly across the plushy material as if someone had buttered the comfy blue cushions.

  Turning as I rolled to my feet—with all the grace and agility of a dying porpoise, but who’s judging?—I tossed everyone a quick salute—congratulating them on... they’re conjoined weirdness? Otherness? Inability to gather in a peaceful, friendly like manner? The fact they haven’t killed each other yet, or me? I didn’t know—and went to make a run for it.

  And I would have made it, too.

  “Don’t even think about leaving yet,” Callie warned, her words snapping like the crack of a whip at my back. Her eyes narrowed—I could feel it, those beady eyes burning into the back of my head—and I froze as I glanced over my shoulder, spotting her right as she pointed a long, lime green fingernail in my direction.

  I felt sort of zapped in place as I slowly turned to face her, my feet like lead weights, knees jittery as they threatened to buckle under my weight. The tricky witch’s chin jutted, her lips pulling into a tight, thin line, her eyes turning to squinty little slits as I caught my first glimpse.

  Callie’s jade eyes shot with blue, her nostrils flaring like Spira’s as my eyes strayed to the door for a split second. The look on her face indicated she’d have no problem whatsoever waiting me out, or tackling me, should I give in to the impulse riding me to run.

  The witch felled me with that dragon lady look, forcing me to do her bidding; though I couldn’t, technically, say she’d actually really made me do anything.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” I mumbled awkwardly, like a coward, my gaze darting towards the front door longingly one last time as I tromped back to the sofa.

  Plopping my purse down, I grumbled a few choice words under my breath and slumped back into my seat.

  Bright smile returning, which just made me think she was either practicing the dark arts too much or mentally unstable, Callie’s laugh tinkled, the sound melodious and soft like the chimes of a bell, as her lips curled so sweetly.

  Blinking her long lashes slowly, dark brown eyebrows arching ever so slightly as she stared down the length of her little button tipped nose at me, she grinned outright, another bell tinkling laugh chiming away. I wondered for a moment if she farts glitter when she gets on one of these kicks—a fairy on crack.

  She must be messing with her glamour spells again. That has to be it.

  Ah... good old Callie. One of these days I’m going to get fed up with all this fairy farting, coquettish eyelash batting, bell chimin’ laughing to disguise her piggy snort-giggling, and squash her butt like a-

  “Good!” Callie interrupted my unfriendly thoughts—but we’re messed up besties, (mesties?) sort of, so it’s okay. Our love-hate relationship just keeps things fresh. Slap a biatch for bein’ so fake it’s getting on my last ever loving nerve, fresh.

  Clapping her hands, my jailer- I mean, friend, cleared her throat. “That’s wonderful because the fun has only just begun.”

  “What fun?” Spira asked cattily, tapping the toe of her clunky steel toed boot impatiently on the end of Callie’s fancy looking rug. “I have yet to see this fun, and I grow restless.”

  “The fun I’m getting to, you dried up old hag of a dragoness, if you’ll just give me a minute, hmm.” Cheeky as ever, Callie didn’t miss a beat.

  Spira could have feigned offense, but smirked and chuckled. Picking up a water bottle off the tray full of soft drinks, punch, and other various offerings, she shrugged and twisted the top.

  “Fine. I am game, but you will hurry.” Waggling a claw tipped finger, she clucked her forked tongue, her slender nostrils flaring, and motioned for her to get on with it.

  Lips pursing like he had dog crap smeared across his thick upper lip, his wide mouth twisting into a moue of distaste, Stefan gave an indelicate sniff.

  “The girl says she can’t handle it, she can’t handle it.” The necromancer’s hand flapped in my direction, his fat emerald ring sliding around on his bony finger. “Don’t force the normal to do something she’s uncomfortable with. I say let her go.”

  Flashing me a patently false, sympathetic smile with those cheap beaver teeth of his I just know are crap veneers, I grinned savagely back.

  “Never said I couldn’t handle it, Steffie-kins. I was just sayin’ earlier, we aren’t kids anymore, and I don’t see why we can’t do something else.” Then lower, I mumbled, “Or end the night now.”

  Pulling his hands togeth
er to form a little steeple in front of him, peering up at me through his ridiculously thick, blonde lashes, Stefan rested his chin on his fingertips, leaning forward on bent elbows as he rested the knobby ends on his knees. “Mmm.” Condescension dripped from that one sound. “So you’ve said.”

  Rolling my eyes, I just let it go. The has-been wasn’t even worth it.

  “What is dis spinning of bottles and truth of daring normals speak of?” Byron the werewolf rumbled out in his deep bass voice. “Have you done dis, Norman?”

  “They are children’s games, doggie breath, and her name is Norma, not Normal, Norm, or Norman. Come now, rejects, Norma has been chumming with the likes of us for how long? Be getting your shit right.” Spira looked to Byron when she answered, a hissing noise issuing from her throat, her inhuman, lizard-like green-gold gaze slowly drifting to Stefan as her voice slipped into its familiar, throaty growl.

  Gotta love a feisty dragon. Spira, hard shell and all, was my girl.

  Flipping her long black hair over her shoulder, her gold and silver streaks shining and shimmering like that of her dragon scales, her thin upper lip curled in a sneer, exposing an impressive set of sharp, fat fangs.

  Byron frowned, amber eyes flashing wolf-gold. “Why is fish scales mad? What did Byron do now? When Byron wolf boy, not play dis games...”

  Waving his hand around dismissively, the hair atop his meaty wrist swaying like fronds in the breeze, I found myself watching it dance, mesmerized—sickly fascinated by his overabundance of body hair, even by werewolf standards, but none the less fascinated.

  “Dis... not like that.” Harrumphing on a grunt, slightly defensive at Spira’s short, blunt attitude with him, he bristled visibly. “Byron go to special school for de werewolves. Someone explains dis game of de strangeness to Byron, yes?” Grumbling as his chest rattled like his animal, he rubbed at his thick, hairy arms as if he’d caught a chill, stifling a hard growl.

  “Oooo! Speaking of! Be back in a jiff,” Callie called out over her shoulder. “I have an idea! Hah! Reminds me of a spell in a book I came across the other day! Think you’ll all like it! This is gonna be fan-frickin-tastic!” she sang, her ample hips swaying in her knee-length, black pencil skirt as she kicked out of her sky high heels, bustling out of the room.

  It was Spira’s turn to roll her eyes towards the ceiling as Callie disappeared into the kitchen.

  “The excitement is killing me,” Divit murmured dryly, running his tongue along his teeth. Spotting a fang peeking out amid the tantalizing peek of pink, I gulped, my fingers drifting to my neck protectively.

  “Don’t worry, little one.” Divit flashed me an ugly smile that bordered on a sneer, catching my reaction. Lids lowering heavily as he brushed a hand through his short, wavy locks to rub along his nape, his dark brown eyes flashed red. “I don’t waste my time on watered down blood lines. It does nothing for me.”

  “Watered down?” Blinking, my eyes darted to my lap, where my hands had fallen. I had them fisted, my fingers intertwined and tightly clenched together in a ball. Daring a peek at Divit, my brow crinkled. “I’m completely human, bud.”

  This news made my day though, and while I didn’t smile on the outside, I brightened immeasurably within. Not potential vampire food? Heck yeah!

  “I’d be worse than watered down to you,” I added, “I’m like tap water.”

  Spira snorted at the comparison, her long but dainty looking pointy tipped ears swiveling as they twitched at the sides of her head. Canting her head, she turned to smile at me slowly.

  A mischievous gleam entered her metallic flecked eyes and she let out a low, husky chuckle. “Oh, I do not know... I have heard you scream,” she teased, plopping down next to me to nudge me in the ribs as she slid off the arm of the couch opposite me. “You sure there isn’t a bit of elf or banshee in there?”

  “You shrieked too, if you’ll remember.” Nudging her back, I harrumphed. My cheeks pinkened slightly but I ignored it. “And I scream like a little girl when I watch a scary-assed horror movie like that and the guy with the chainsaw pops out to kill the unsuspecting idiot, not like a banshee, but like I’m supposed to, okay.”

  Chin lifting stubbornly, I gazed down the length of my nose at the grinning shifter woman, haughty expression firmly in place in the face of her wide smile and all of those exposed, wicked looking sharp teeth.

  “As is my God-given right, as the proud owner of a vagina.” Lightly used, I silently tacked on, which forced me to cough a little into my hand to cover up the silly smirk I was trying to smother.

  “I’ve never played those games,” Mary piped up, as if the idea that Spira and me being the center of attention for all of two seconds was too much for the insufferable wretch to bear.

  No matter, it was all in jest and we were done goofing anyway.

  Mary, by the way, is a big old pain in my ass. But no, she’s actually a demoness—some kind of sex demon, like succubus or something.

  “It’s a normals thing.” Mary said normals, meaning us horribly uninteresting regular folk—but she might as well have said Gonorrhea ridden freaks—as if we had cooties or some highly contagious disease she might catch just from speaking of us. “We had, you know,” her hand waved flippantly, “better games.”

  I didn’t know. Callie went to normal school with me, and did her witch stuff after school and during the summer. Her parents wanted her to have the best of both worlds. Sadly, Callie was the most normal of this whole bunch, myself included.

  Glancing over at me as if she’d just now realized what she’d said, Mary’s tiny, pink mouth formed a small, surprised o and she made a soft—completely fake, in my extremely biased opinion—startled sound.

  Holding out a hand, a soft, sweet smile gracing her vixen face, she wiggled her fingers and shrugged. “Sorry, no offense.”

  “None taken,” I shot right back, with the same tone she’d used on me. If that soul sucking sex freak was sorry a day in her life I’d eat my sweaty work bra, supportive underwire and all.

  “Of course you wouldn’t.” Mary blinked her long, fake lashes—god, I hoped they were fake, because that would just be un-fucking fair—batting the stupid things in my direction, offering me that I’m-just-pretending-to-be-nice-but-I-really-freaking-hate-your-guts-for-no-damned-good-reason smile.

  Yup, hate you too, pookie.

  Searching for a distraction, any distraction, I picked up a water bottle, unscrewing the cap, and began to chug. Thoughts ran through my mind, anything to distract me from the bloodlust I felt for the bitch not three feet away. She was vindictive and snide, like one of those mean girls in high school that picked on you to make herself feel better, sweet yet sour to your face, but what’s worse is I’d have totally gotten my ass whooped, had I ever mustered the moxie to charge her ass and tried to open a can.

  Puny human, crazy demoness—yeah, I’d be a sure bet on getting my butt beat, though sometimes I still say it might be worth it to try, damn it.

  What to think of... what to think of...? Sex, baseball, television, why I’ll never go to a nude beach... Soon I was on a roll.

  Shake, rattle & cough

  Time passed and before I knew it I was running out of shit to numb my brain with, but I was already half way gone to forgetting what I was so riled up about in the first place.

  Where the heck is Callie? My eyes drifted towards the kitchen. The sooner she gets her witchy butt back in here to do whatever crap charade she has planned, the sooner I can get home, shower, slip into some comfortable pajamas, slide on in front of my television and vegetate. I heard there was a monster movie marathon going on this weekend—water monsters, any and all—and it sounded promising.

  “Are you sure you aren’t part banshee? And what exactly do you mean by lightly used?” Duncan leaned forward interestedly, blue eyes wide and earnest.

  “What?” Mary glanced at him sharply, light brown eyes narrowing as her lips pursed. “Make sense, would you? Whose head are you in, head case, and wh
at are you blubbering on about?”

  “Norma Gene’s.” While I choked and sucked in a shocked breath, inhaling the last chug of my water, Duncan gave her a look as if she was stupid.

  Spluttering out a set of loud, wracking coughs that sent copious amounts of spit and bottled water spraying everywhere, I blushed clear past my hairline, my ears flaming right along with my blazing cheeks.

  Oblivious to the apoplectic look on my face as Spira tried to beat the last of the water strangling me from my lungs, via pummeling my back heartily, Duncan went on. “She was thinking about how loud she screams sometimes during sex because she was thinking about what Spira and Divit said, but she didn’t know Divit was just goading her to see what she’d do, and Spira was teasing. I could hear it in her head. She knows she’s human, but sometimes she wonders, What if?”

  Through the corner of my eye I could see him tapping his temple, and I wished nothing more than for him to shut the hell up. If only I could speak. I tried, but all that came out was a choked gasp, followed by more coughing.

  “No more talking.” Spira continued to pound my poor back, shaking her head as her lips pulled in a moue of distaste. “I fear you will choke on the spit of your own making and expire for sure, my friend.”

  I tried to gesture at Duncan, asking her to shut him up for me, but she was too busy walloping my spine to catch on. I had to admit, it was helping, but I’d probably be bruised in the morning. Thankful, and alive, but bruised.

  “It’s pretty loud.” Duncan picked up a root beer off the coffee table tray and casually popped the top. “And before she was thinking her vagina was lightly used, tacking it on as an afterthought. What exactly does that mean, lightly used? Does she not like it rough? Does it mean she doesn’t sleep around much? Does she only partially go all the way? Is this a normal, uh, normals thing?”